When the pandemic upended daily life in his small Missouri town, small-business owner Scott Volner went into overdrive to keep his employees on the payroll, despite a drop in revenue. Then he started to get bombarded by telemarketers who were claiming to be “tax service specialists,” telling him he qualified for a special IRS pandemic relief credit. Among hundreds of calls and emails, he signed up with a company and agreed to pay a 10% fee.
“I’m upset — it’s frustrating and it’s aggravating on multiple levels, because the marketing firms had too much power to be involved in this,” said Michelle Hance, who runs a small audio/visual business in Missouri. She signed up to get the tax credit with Innovation Refunds, and she says she received $13,000 from the federal government, which she recently had to pay back.